Objectionable content in pathfinder

[aobst128]

Usually, you don't need to specify that you are anti real world slavery since that's a given. I doubt anyone on this thread is pro slavery.

[Rysky]

Inglorious Bastards wasn’t about being Nazis though, but killing them.

Deriven was responding to the option for PCs to own slaves.

[Corvo Spiritwind]

Rysky wrote:

Inglorious Bastards wasn’t about being Nazis though, but killing them.

Deriven was responding to the option for PCs to own slaves.

English is my third language so I might have missed it, but where in the post he responded to does it bring up slave options for PCs?

[Kobold Catgirl]

It's about this topic, which is about Paizo (among other things) allowing PCs to buy slaves, so either Waiki's post was extremely off-topic or Deriven was on point.

[pixierose]

Corvo Spiritwind wrote:

Rysky wrote:

Inglorious Bastards wasn’t about being Nazis though, but killing them.

Deriven was responding to the option for PCs to own slaves.

English is my third language so I might have missed it, but where in the post he responded to does it bring up slave options for PCs?

He doesn't directly says it but instead makes reference to what Erik Mona was responding too, which was that there were pc options that allowed for the purchasing of slaves, and that was a feature of Pathfinder Society for awhile, and the way they handled it was awful.

[Gortle]

Rysky wrote:

Inglorious Bastards wasn’t about being Nazis though, but killing them.

Deriven was responding to the option for PCs to own slaves.

Well I didn't get that from his posts, but that does tone his position down a bit.

Most games I normally play have a restriction against evil characters. Just because they are normally too disruptive and its too hard to imagine how the good characters tolerate them in the long term. That and some players not reacting well to how their characters get treated. But occasionally we do allow them for particular games.

[aobst128]

The lines gotta be drawn somewhere for home games, but that line is up to everyone involved. Evil characters can be a lot of fun if you have a decent DM.

[thejeff]

Gortle wrote:

Rysky wrote:

Inglorious Bastards wasn’t about being Nazis though, but killing them.

Deriven was responding to the option for PCs to own slaves.

Well I didn't get that from his posts, but that does tone his position down a bit.

Most games I normally play have a restriction against evil characters. Just because they are normally too disruptive and its too hard to imagine how the good characters tolerate them in the long term. That and some players not reacting well to how their characters get treated. But occasionally we do allow them for particular games.

And specifically, since they were allowed for a long time in PFS where you already can't be evil, it was canonical that buying and owning slaves didn't mean you were evil.

Much like a neutral country could allow slavery.

This is the kind of thing that leads us to "Paizo can't handle this topic well and it's probably better if they just don't."

[Tender Tendrils]

Yeah, the whole original problem with the absalom thing wasn't that it was something like Cheliax where it was an explicitly evil nation having slaves, it was a neutral aligned nation that is literally designed to be "home" for most player characters somehow having legal slavery.

[Deriven Firelion]

Gortle wrote:

Deriven Firelion wrote:

El Waiki wrote:

Session 0 and the tables social contract is what defines what should or should not be a player option. So, if the GM feels he can handle a delicate topic, the PCs feel they can handle said topic, and the players and GM trust each other with handling the topic, what's the issue? At this point the "Hey. Get this garbage out of my fantasy game" mentality is just messing with whatever happens in the sanctity of other people dinning room.

No, not in this instance. You are literally a scumbag if you allow this option. Not just a disagreement, but real scum.

I would leave your game immediately if you thought this was funny or worth playing. I would never play with anyone who allowed this option. I would likely dislike that person and stop all association.

I still absolutely cannot believe this option was allowed to make it in the game system as a player option.

There really is no discussion to be had on it. If you enjoy role-playing this option, then you deserve to be ostracized by any decent group of people.

I really do not understand your lack of tolerance as expressed here.

If you don't like it, or want to deal with a topic, you have the oppourtunity to feed it back before the game and get something else played. You get to say no.

Some of the best works of art/media have been on very sensitive topics. Indeed addressing them well, from a variety of perpectives even those of pure evil. Eg Inglorius Basstards. If your group is capable of handling and enjoying such a plot then why not. Clearly its not for everyone, but it is for some. Yes it would be so easy to do such a story badly, but also to do it well.

Gortle, if you think a player option to own slaves is ok, then you are not anything like the person I thought you were.

This has nothing to do with compelling writing. This has to do with an option to own slaves for money by player characters.

And all the associated behaviors necessary for that to happen.

I want nothing to do with that. I don't think it should have been a player option in a book. I don't know why people are trying to defend this.

Do you plan to roleplay this with your players? Do you even know all the attendant professions and behaviors associated with enslavement?

In ancient slave societies, there was particular job for managing slaves. In simplest terms, someone called a slave master or a slave breaker.

If you were in this profession, someone could bring you back say a group of humans. Your job was to weed them out and break the ones that could be broken and kill the ones that can't be broken. Then you train them to obedience using violence, deprivation, tying them up, and doing everything in your power to force obedience until they can be sold in the slave market as a broken slave who won't attack their "master."

To Paizo this is apparently a simple black market item where you just pay your 75 gold or whatever and the DM what? Plays some person who has been broken by a slave master with a player and follows their commands? If you make this person want to leave and the player what? Kills the slave for disobedience? Or what? Laughs with his buddies, "I lost two slaves while we were fighting that dragon. I better go buy a few more."

What purpose does it serve for you to support this type of role-play activity? Do you plan to support it? Do you allow it in your game? Do you want to have to go, "I'm the DM? What does slave feel like being forced into servitude after being taken from their home and beaten until they obey?"

This isn't about some AP like Age of Ashes where you're clearly fighting against slavers and likely taking great pleasure in wiping out their scumbag organization. This is about players having the option to be the slaver with no regard for what that means in a game world.

It's odious behavior. I don't know why you think it is ok to allow players to purchase slaves. I hoped you were a better person than that in all honesty.

[aobst128]

They've made it not a thing for society play. That's what this threads about. For home games however, as long as people are in agreement, whatever goes. It's not that big of a deal. Personally, I probably wouldn't run it as a GM or have a character that indulges in it, but other tables are free to do whatever they like. If I were to do it though, it would be an explicitly evil action that effects alignment like Paizo should have done in the first place. Seems reasonable enough to me.

[Stephan Taylor]

While I’ve tried to follow this issue of unsavory topics being sidelined, in particular slavery, I’m still a bit fuzzy as to what the actual issue is. Were freelancers and PFS organizers uncomfortable with slavery being focused on? Was the issue that it was not explicitly made to be “evil” to own slaves? Or were the stories told about slavery just not well done? I don’t particularly care that Paizo is opting to not focus on slavery, but completely excising it from the canon seems rather difficult as a number of fleshed out societies like Cheliax have significant ties to the institution.

I am a descendant of slaves, and while I have no interest in playing a slave or a slaver, the presence of slavery in the world in and of itself isn’t necessarily shocking or upsetting to me. Yes, I understand that I cannot speak for all Black Americans, nor am I trying to.

It makes sense to markedly point it out as an evil thing and have nations who are neutral or good aligned moving to outlaw it. It is a somewhat lazy way to say “these guys aren’t good at all”. And you don’t need to focus on it (unless you want to do a Django Unchained fantasy or something).

[Tender Tendrils]

Stephan Taylor wrote:

While I’ve tried to follow this issue of unsavory topics being sidelined, in particular slavery, I’m still a bit fuzzy as to what the actual issue is. Were freelancers and PFS organizers uncomfortable with slavery being focused on? Was the issue that it was not explicitly made to be “evil” to own slaves? Or were the stories told about slavery just not well done? I don’t particularly care that Paizo is opting to not focus on slavery, but completely excising it from the canon seems rather difficult as a number of fleshed out societies like Cheliax have significant ties to the institution.

All of these things have been explained, numerous times, in this thread and others - it is getting exhausting to answer again and again.

For the umpteenth time;

- The decision to stop focusing on slavery was made internally at Paizo, in response to the writers at paizo and freelancers who write for Paizo not wanting to write about it anymore.
- Multiple non-evil kingdoms had slavery being legal, despite having various neutral alignments. Slavery as a legal practice is one of those things (along with concentration camps, eating babies, genocide, etc) that are so corrosive and horrible that a nation that permits them is evil, full stop.
- The stories about slavery were very poorly done, Erik Mona has admitted this.
-It isn't being excised from the setting or retconned. Paizo just aren't writing about it anymore. Much like how storm giants still exist in the setting, even if Paizo don't publish more storm giant statblocks or feature them in any adventures, so goes for slavery.

Paizo have made this decision, many of their writers and staff have publicly stated that they are relieved this decision has been made, and have been begging that people stop crusading against the decision.

The time has come for people to just accept Paizo's decision - if you have questions, read what has already been posted about it. If you disagree, go talk about it somewhere other than these forums. James Jacobs and the moderation team and others at Paizo have made it clear that this isn't up for debate and that they don't want people questioning their decision or railing against it anymore on the forums.

[dirtypool]

Here is the actual issue as it unfolded:

Until a specific PFS scenario was written to outlaw slavery there was an active slave market in Absalom and a mechanic for purchasing slaves. Several PFS players complained that other players were indeed buying slaves at the beginning of Absalom based scenarios and lobbied to have slavery removed as an active mechanic in the game.

A scenario was done to do just that.

Then the release of Absalom’s Lost Omens book was delayed, it’s page count doubled and when it finally did come out it had more direct references to Absalom’s slavery history than any prior write up of the city - or any other PF book for that matter.

A freelancer wrote an anonymous letter expressing their dismay at this as a POC working in the industry. Paizo said they would remove it from the published works wholesale moving forward